Vices & Virtues
by starsarewrong
Summary: The night he meets her, Jason Grace is at a party and only wants to have fun. He still doesn't know who that girl is and that she will destroy his life completely. Reyna has a mission - approaching her target's friends to get information. When she crashes the college party Jason is at, she can't imagine she will soon consider it her biggest mistake. Dark AU. Jeyna.
1. I - Stall me

A/N: Hi everyone again! How are you doing? I'm actually pretty busy because of school, but I'm having a lot of inspiration lately, so I finally got to translate this piece lol. It's a longfic based on Panic! At The Disco's album _Vices & Virtues _because I love their music, and each chapter will be named after one of the songs in the album. I really hope you like it as I think this is my favourite fic of mine at the moment, and I really hope the plot won't be too difficult to follow haha. Please let me know and _please_, leave a review if you want to. Enjoy!

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**I - Stall me**

_Why would you bring me in if you knew what you'd become?_

_So curse everyone and everything, even the sun._

_Stall me, stall me, I'm all in; stall me, call me up or break me in._

_A dark room in the wallflower garden at the party._

* * *

Jason had the feeling he'd already seen her somewhere. His gaze wandered for a few seconds up and down the girl's face, in a desperate search for answers. Perhaps, he said to himself, he had noticed her a few hours before, when the party had begun and there were not many people yet; that girl did not seem easy to ignore: the high cheekbones and the red lips made up her regal appearance, making her look like a real queen. "Are you Jason Grace?" she asked, surprising him while, his back turned to her, the boy was giving another bite to his cupcake.

He smiled truthfully, swallowing the last bite and resting the dessert on the table where he had found it. "Yes, I am," he answered, handing her his hand. She clasped it in hers, making Jason perceive the silky cold of her body that looked dangerously like an ice statue. She smiled too, as her black eyes lightened up and the corners of her mouth lifted a little, not too much to make her look ridiculous; she kept her shoulders wide and her head straight, as if, from her childhood, she had been accustomed to behaving in a certain way. He wondered if she wasn't really a royal - maybe British. "How do you know me?" he retorted instead.

The girl smiled again, tilting her head. "That guy over there told me," she pointed a distant point of the garden where they were, beyond the pool in which some college boys were trying to compete in some acrobatic diving competitions. "He says he's your friend; his name is Leo, I think," she went on, assuming an undecipherable expression.

"Oh, Leo, yes," he laughed. As always, his best friend never gave up a chat with the pretty girl on duty: there had been Khione, there had been Calypso and even Thalia, Jason's older sister who, of course, had rejected him in a rather abrupt way. "How did you manage to get rid of him?"

The girl shook her head, suggesting that it was better not to talk about it. For a moment, Jason felt almost guilty for his friend, who had never understood - and never would, his conscience told him - when it was time to stop it. Even Piper, his roommate, the person Leo had more to do with during all his life and the only one who knew how to make him reason when the situation was difficult, often complained about the boy's constant jokes, which also continued in those moments that, at least in theory, were serious or touching.

Jason sighed, lowering his gaze at the tip of his shoes, always ready to keep him company in the most critical moments of his life. "Excuse him," he murmured, shrugging his shoulders not to appear too serious, "he does that with all the girls." He looked at the girl in the eye, as if to explain that, despite everything, Leo was still a nice and funny guy and that never ever he could hurt her, because yes, he was annoying, but not bad at all.

"Anyway," she continued, fondling her left arm with the fingertips of her right hand as if to protect herself from some unforeseen trouble, "I am Reyna." She said her name with a hint of contempt, as if she did not like to repeat it or say it out loud, and she was trapped in an image of a woman who, in fact, was not the one she wanted to show to others. Her black hair, loose on her shoulders, just swawed, tried to dance just for a few seconds with the wind that had just woken up.

At first, the boy wondered if it was not rude not to ask her anything (how was she?, was she feeling good?, did she have some problems?), even just to make her notice that she was not alone and that as far as it could be worthy, she could count on his moral support; then, however, he decided not to think about it, since, to be honest, it was not his business, and he wanted to fully enjoy the evening. "Well, nice to meet you, Reyna," he smiled. He run a hand through his blond hair, just to make sure that it was still combed after the ride in the car that, he had promised to himself, he would no longer do if Leo or Percy were driving. He looked around the crowded garden, the coloured lanterns that warmed the more or less fresh air of one night at the end of July: the more tight-knit 20-years-olds were still piled up on the dance floor and, in pairs, swayed everything but awkward, slow dancing to the beat of a vintage song, some girls in bikinis were browsing a newspaper by the pool, perhaps in the hope that even the moon could improve their tanning, while, with the smile printed on their face, those who were already drunk were still drinking out of proportion. "What brought you here? I've never seen you in college."

The girl shrugged her shoulders, a shadow running through her eyes. "In fact, I don't study in college," she explained, looking around as if, in the crowd of students, she wanted to identify only one of them, a needle in the haystack, "a friend of mine invited me, but now... I can't see him anywhere. I must have been looking for him for more than an hour now." Her voice became deeper and darker, as if, even though she didn't want to talk about it, she wanted to make it clear in the most explicit way that the boy who had stood her up would not be so good, once he would meet her again. She hastily arranged the purple red tulle straps of the dress, which had descended along her arms, revealing more skin than she had foreseen. The bodice covered with red and golden beads wrapped her bust with refined precision, highlighting the right points without exaggeration, as if that dress had been specially designed for her; the skirt, a very light tulle all the same color of the shoulder straps, only let glimpse the golden sandals that embellished her whole silhouette.

"I'm sorry." Jason didn't know what else he could say: he was sorry for that girl who probably knew no one there. He imagined he was in her shoes, alone at a party where those who had invited him had stood him up, not knowing who he could talk to or who he could trust. Jason was not a scary boy, but it was always better to be provident and not to get too close to the wrong people: his sister had taught him when, still very young, they had begun to go to the park near the house to play with the other children of their neighborhood.

The girl's face writhed in an expression that, in different contexts, the boy would have found funny. She bit her lips, while, for the sudden movement of her head, a dark strand freed from the hairstyle - a simple half-ponytail which had been arranged like a bun -, landing on her face; she wrinkled her eyebrows, approaching each other dangerously, while her nose was crinkled in an explicit_ No_. "Don't be sorry," she said, her voice firmer than ever, "it doesn't matter. I guess he forgot about our date." She brought a hand to her face and, with a fluid movement, removed her hair, brushing it behind her left ear. "Or he's fallen asleep on his schoolbooks."

Jason almost choked on his own saliva. "On his schoolbooks?!" he exclaimed, fearing, a moment later, of having called upon himself the attention of all the guests. He turned to look around him, but, as it seemed, none of them had noticed, engaged as they were to have as much fun as possible. Then, returning to face the girl, he went on, in a more earnest tone: "Isn't it a little too early to study?" A reflector light went around the garden, illuminating, even if only for a short time, the young man and woman, making them, for that little, the protagonists of the party. Jason smiled at Reyna, as he carefully examined her eyes lighten and brighten. Then, twilight came to reign over them again, hiding their vices and secrets.

"He's got an exam as soon as the classes start again." She told him in a whisper, almost ashamed or as if she was admitting it for the first time for her mysterious friend. "You know, he cares so much," she explained, sighing bitterly. How long had Reyna had to deal with the stubbornness of that boy who, in order to take good grades at school, had forgotten about her? Months? _Years_? Jason hoped that she didn't like this one friend of hers, because, otherwise, she would suffer a lot, both in the past and in the future.

The boy tried to imagine such a situation, but the only person who cared so much about school (and yes, even Jason wanted to have good results, but he wasn't obsessed with the thought of having to get the highest marks in all the exams) he was able to think about was Annabeth, who, surprisingly, could find time for friends and for her fiancé too. "A friend of mine's girlfriend is like that too: she thinks about her marks more than anything else," he said, not knowing the precise reason why he was doing it.

Reyna sneered. "Leo?" she asked, in the most natural tone that he had heard her pull out that evening.

The boy burst out laughing, he couldn't help it. "Pft, no!" he exclaimed, amused by the thought of Leo and Annabeth together. Who knows, he said, if his friend had told something to Reyna, maybe braging about having even more than one girlfriend, and asking her if she wanted to be the next one. He shook his head vigorously, trying to drive that creepy image out of his brain. Once again, Jason felt ashamed for Leo, who, as usual, had earned the title of Killjoy. "His name is Percy Jackson," he explained, "He's pretty famous in college; maybe your friend told you about him" he tried.

The girl stared at him intensely, and he was afraid she could take his soul at any moment, as if she had the power to take it away with just one look. "May be," she said, "Is he the captain of the swimming-team?"

He could not avoid smiling while he nodded smugly. Percy was one of his best friends and he considered him almost like a brother: knowing that even people who had never seen Percy in their life were aware of his fame and position in college could only fill him with pride. He was almost laughing while, with the contentment that only a very tired person could feel for something so silly, he talked again. He said, a smile that grew wider and wider dangerously pulling the skin of his face, "They call him Aquaman at school, for this reason. Well, if he was named captain, there must be a reason," he explained, as an excuse.

"Is he really as good as they say?"

Jason nodded again, mindful of when, the first time he had visited Jacksons' house, he was amazed at how many medals and trophies Percy had won during his swimming career, that had started at the tender age of five, when his mother, tired of running after him all the time, had enrolled him in the children's course to make him calm a little, at least. "Actually, swimming is not the only sport he's good at," he confessed, knowing that, if his friend discovered him, he would insult him in all the languages he knew - that is, only one. "He secretly attends a fencing course, to prevent him from having a nickname like Swordman, which would sound both ridiculous and creepy." The boy chuckled at the memory of the day when, begging him on his knees, Percy had asked him to ask his sister's boyfriend, Luke, to give him lessons, and making him promise that he would keep that secret away from the college students.

Reyna was almost surprised by that information, still bursting into a loud laugh. "Ah, really?" They chuckled, completely indifferent to the hustle and bustle that surrounded them, as if they were completely alone in the middle of nowhere. They stayed in silence for a while, listening carefully to every single movement and sound and noise, like two children who, playing hide and seek, look for the best time to get out of their hideout without being discovered. The students laughed and shouted at every new victim of their alcoholic _Truth or Dare_; the crickets sang, not knowing that, in any case, no one that night would hear them, while the radio inside the villa was softly releasing John Lennon's voice and his _Imagine_. The girl winced, grasping her wrist with one hand. "I love this song!" she exclaimed, her face suddenly brightening.

"To tell the truth," the young man joked, grinning, "I didn't think you were so cliché." For a second, he felt like he was in a movie, or in one of his favorite books, those who had been his best friends since he was little. He held out his hand, hoping she would willingly accept his good intentions and, his voice as similar to Mr. Darcy's as he managed to pull out, asked: "Do you want to have a drink, or to dance a little?"

She nodded silently, half-closing her eyelids in a mute request of discretion. Her black lashes seemed to want him to approach, while the opaque brown of her eyeshadow made her gaze even more elegant than it must be without the makeup. She walked quickly but elegantly toward the dance floor, and Jason forced himself not to look at her flanks waving, following her shortly thereafter. He put his hands on her waist, approaching her, while she slid her arms around his neck, surrounding him with an exorbitant slowness and starting to play with his hair immediately after, tickling him and sending to his body discharges of pure adrenaline in the form of electricity. They flew around the room without modesty or shame on each other, because, at that moment, they both had the feeling of getting to know each other, of being in complete harmony and of feeling at ease, as if they were alone in the dark, the reality as the only interlocutor.

The boy almost immediately realized that Reyna was not an easy girl to approach: even though she had consented to dance with him, she kept her distance and kept her body rigid, as if she was going to meet something she could not avoid but of which she was inevitably frightened. She hadn't broken down even for a second since she had spoken to him for the first time, not opening up like no other had ever done. Jason wondered for the second time that evening if there was anything wrong with her, whether it was extremely sad or just lost in her thoughts and why she was. He bit his lower lip, trying to think of something to say while the notes of _Love of my life_ invaded his thoughts, forcing him to hum in such a sneaky way that he didn't notice until he opened his mouth to talk to the girl he was dancing with.

"Is there something wrong?" He looked at her, studying her face with tanned skin, looking for any sign that could confirm his theory and automatically authorize him to drive her home. The dance floor had gradually emptied, leaving them space to move more freely, flipping in the midsummer starry sky. In the back of the room, the young man intercepted Percy and Annabeth waving in time with the melody that they knew by heart, while exchanging a tender kiss on their lips. Behind them, Gwen was trying to drag Bobby, his best friend who, as always, preferred to stand up for his own business, on the dancefloor. He smiled at the memory of the evening when, at the end of their Senior year in high school, that guy had decided, for the first time in his life, to attend a social event like that – how much fun they had!

"No," Reyna murmured, her voice soft and calm, while, with a colder and more decisive expression than before, she looked at him in the eyes, challenging him to prove otherwise. She had moved her hair behind her shoulders, revealing her pendants which, the same purple red as the dress, glistened in contact with the soft light, emanating flashes that could only be noticed. "There's no problem," she went on, opening her lips in a half smile that, as far as he could know, to Jason seemed everything but sincere, and then she immediately returned serious and thoughtful. "You don't have to worry, Jason."

He shook his head. "Sorry," he whispered in her ear, holding her closer, "I don't like leaving people in trouble." He leaned his chin on her shoulder and moved his arms from her waist to her shoulders, stroked them slowly, trying to take away a little of the cold that enchained every single cell of hers. It was a long time since Jason had hugged someone: Leo liked to be tough, the typical guy who didn't need anything other than sex and some extreme experiences to take away his boredom from time to time (everyone knew that, anyway, the boy was all the opposite of what he wanted to make others believe), and he had seen Thalia about a month earlier. In fact, it had been a while since Jason had talked to someone for over an hour a day out of college, since he was always busy studying and at his part-time work.

Reyna's muscles were flexed, ready to react to any threat, while she held her hands behind his neck, giving him a glimpse of how sharp her nails must be. "Sorry," she whispered, as she approached her lips to the lobe of his ear, cheek against cheek, skin against skin, making him have goose bumps and shivers which disappeared a second after arriving, at the same speed, "I'm not accustomed to such a situation." She slowly moved away from him, hair ended up on her face, sticking without restraint to her lipstick and lashes impregnated with mascara. "In fact, I haven't danced in months," she confessed, moving her gaze behind Jason's shoulders, staring at an indefinite point beyond the stained-glass windows that divided the room and the courtyard.

"I don't since I was in San Francisco for the last time" he laughed, clenching his eyelids to evoke the memory of him and Leila who, not even knowing what they were doing, jumped here and there with their eyes closed while shouting songs that pleased her, the Bullet for my Valentine ones, failing to take the right notes and getting all the neighbors' reproaches. "And it was about four years ago."

"Four years ago?" She repeated in a smile, incredulous. Her eyes spread, revealing all her astonishment, while her eyebrows rose, forming small lines of expression on her immaculate forehead. Then, Reyna reposed, clenching her jaw and lowering her eyelids, showing a seriousness that Jason thought to be almost inhuman. She cleared her voice. "San Francisco, did you say? Is it your hometown?"

"To tell the truth, it's Los Angeles," he calmly explained. Behind Reyna, Percy and Annabeth had disappeared. He wondered if they had gone home already, or if they had come out to put their feet to soak in the water of the pool, or if, again, they had found a secluded place where to continue their session of kisses flavoured classical architecture. Gwen had lost to Bobby, who, victorious, was seated on the track to observe her peers having fun even without him. "I moved to San Francisco when I was five years old and here in Seattle about three years ago." Jason remembered perfectly the moment when, with a low head and a vacuum in his stomach, he had left the city in which he had grown up, had made friends and had fallen in love for the first time, obliged by his mother who, desperate, wanted to move away as much as possible from the man who had made her suffer the most in the world, her husband. "I've been around a bit, actually."

Reyna shrugged her shoulders, moving aside a little more and making a turn on herself, straining their intertwined fingers. "It's a good thing, isn't it?" she inquired, returning in his arms and letting him hug her again.

Jason didn't know what she meant with _a good thing_. I mean, did she want to say he had the chance to travel, to see places and meet new people, or that he hadn't been enough in a city to get too attached and be disappointed by the next? "I had to move because of my family," he replied, while the stereo was starting to play a song the boy did not know, but that seemed to come out directly from the 40s - a classic jazz with a fast and full of brass. "I don't remember a time when my parents got along, actually. When they got divorced, my sister stayed with our father and I stayed with our mother. The tension grew to such an extent that they could no longer stay in the same State, and here I am in Washington, the State with the largest apple production in the whole USA." The boy chuckled at that information, remembering when, as soon as he'd arrived, his new class-mate Dakota had welcomed him with those words.

She remained silent, the fingers of her right hand intertwined with his and her chest crushed against his white shirt, not a stain to tarnish her immaculate criminal record. Her body - her shoulders, her arms, her fingers - was still cold, but she was slowly warming up in contact with him. Jason felt relieved at the thought, as if losing some of his body heat to help someone else was not the worst thing in the world. He held her tight for another little while, caressing her smooth skin, observing the tension of the nerves and muscles under it and relishing at a distance the smell of her hair, an irresistible mixture of lavender and lemon that, strange as it may seem, approached each other perfectly. Then, in a silent sigh that determined the inevitable end of their moment, she dismissed him and made him sign to follow her out, where, by now, only the most daring had remained to party, letting the others go home or in their dormitories to do things forbidden by law.

They sat on the wall of the courtyard, which divided the flowerbeds (Jason was able to recognize a score of different types of flowers, some of which he did not know the existence until now) from the apple orchard of the cottage in which they were. Being still summer, the trees were devoid of both fruit and flowers, and as the only decoration they had a series of small gems that hid among the green leaves and that did everything but embellish their appearance. The night was stared, only a couple of clouds covered the black mantle the sky was covered by, excluding the view of what must be the constellation of Orion and part of the Milky Way; a slight breeze refreshed the air, pinching Jason's face tenderly, which, in response, began to be tinged with red. Reyna quickly arranged the skirt of her dress, smoothing the fabric that seemed intertwined with golden threads to prevent the formation of folds.

The boy cleared his throat, feeling his face blush. "So," he began, in the worst possible way (Percy's advice to approach girls began to hammer him again in his head, before he shut them down a few seconds later), "Did you have fun at least a little?" He placed the palms of his hands behind him on the wall, succeeding in laying his back and legs to stretch a little.

She chuckled, lowering her gaze and bending her head. "Just a little bit," he admitted, smiling at her own joke full of that timid irony that Jason had never perceived so clear. "Leave it alone," the girl continued, hugging her torso with her bare arms, "I'm not a party girl." She laughed again, softly, as if only she, in the whole world, was allowed to tease people in that way, and as if she did not want others to imitate her. She had goose bumps, and once in a while, a thrill crossed her back, causing her to tremble almost imperceptibly. The stone gaze fixed in the void, Reyna contemplated the whole and the nothing, the vices and the virtues of the people, the thought of the thought, and the motionless engine of which ancient philosophers so much had spoken. The light of the moon illumined her face, highlighting the contrast between the recesses of the eyes and the fullness of the cheeks, and coloring her skin a ghostly white, luminous and disturbing, which made it extremely fascinating and frightening at the same time.

Once again, Jason raised his gaze to the sky, facing the immensity that overcame them. Who was that girl he had danced with all night? What was he doing there? Why did he have that strange feeling that he had already seen her, but that he could not understand where?, he wondered, as he sighed with theatricality as his mother had taught him. "I'd like to see you again" he told her, and, immediately, he was amazed by his own words, the same ones that had so naturally slipped away from his tongue, diving into the air in which they had fluctuated, remaining suspended for a few thousandths of a second. He turned his head towards Reyna, who, on the other hand, stared at him with a mixture of amazement and confusion, her eyebrows raised and her forehead knitted.

"To tell the truth," the girl cleared her throat. "I'd love to, too," she whispered, fiddling with a lock of dark hair, twisting it around her index finger, creating a small bud that had a life expectancy of five seconds. "It's been nice, Jason," she went on, looking at him in the eyes and leaning a little towards him. It was an almost imperceptible movement, as if the girl wanted to approach while maintaining, however, a safe distance. Many might not have noticed it, but Jason had been accustomed to observing every detail of the world surrounding him and having quick reflexes.

The boy beckoned her to wait for him (_It will only take two minutes, all right?,_ he told her through his gaze), as he walked away and, taken a rag of paper and a working pen, scribbled his cell phone number with the most readable handwriting he could. When he went back to the wall, she was still there, sitting and observing the scene around her with attentive eye. Seeing him arrive, the girl stood up, taking a few steps towards him. "Here's to you," Jason said, handing her the folded leaflet – she unfolded it, looked at it carefully and, only a few seconds later, folded it back to look at the guy in the eye. "Call me once in a while."

Reyna smiled. "I will." She pointed a distant point, over the hedge the enclosure of the house was, where the road laid. "Now," she said, "I should really go: my carriage has arrived," she joked, chuckling still softly and bending her head forward. The atmosphere was quiet now, the music lower and most of the lights off, revealing the calm and silence that reigned in that little mansion outside the city. "Good night, Jason. Thank you." And, with those words, she left him alone, without the shadow of a kiss, nor a smile, studying the emptiness and silence that, devious, approached him as she, faster and quicker, disappeared from his sight.


	2. II - The ballad of Mona Lisa

A/N: Hello Jeyna fans! I wanted to post this chapter in March but I've been very busy lately because of school projects and I didn't have time to edit it. I know I've left things unresolved and unexplained in the first chapter, so I hope this one will make things a little clearer.

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**II - The ballad of Mona Lisa**

_And takes a moment to asses the sin she's paid for._

_A lonely speaker in a conversation,_

_Her words are swimming through his ears again._

_There's nothing wrong with just the taste of what you've paid for._

* * *

"I've got some news." Reyna closed the door of the black off-road vehicle only after making sure that the brand-new dress that Lupa had bought her for that occasion would not get stuck in the door. She sat on the passenger's seat and, in an almost automatic movement, she fastened her seat beltthe seat belt was reached. The car departed without too much noise, a ghost made out of shadows through the streets of that city of which, by now, the girl knew every single corner.

Nico snorted from behind the steering wheel, his hands resting on it and tightened firmtightly, accustomed as they were to holding the handlebars of the boy's strictly black Bonneville T100. He didn't even look into her eyes, just looking at her with the corner of his eye. "Well, hello to you too, Reyna" he joked, his tone annoyed. The boy rolled his eyes, then he immediately brought his eyes on the road to the north again, where their temporary refuge was. Outside it was dark, and the streetlights illuminating the sides of the roadway helped little or nothing in that darkness that, as well as the landscape, seemed to swallow even the sensation of reality. "However," Nico continued, bringing her back to reality, "My father and Lupa have left the city. You'll tell them what you found out in the morning."

Reyna fixed herself on her seat, turning to what she now considered her brother. "So..." The thought of what she was about to say made her shudder. She remembered their colleague – their _Third Wheel _– and she couldn't help but bend her face in an expression that, she hoped, could express all her disappointment. She knew that Nico couldn't stand the other boy too and that, like her, he did his best not to point that out to Mr. Hades and to Lupa. Otherwise, they would be angry enough to give them a lecture about the fact that, in that situation, personal emotions and the relationships didn't count, and about how the only thing that was important was teamwork.

The boy didn't answer, focused as he was on keeping his eyes on the beam of light in front of them that paved the way to follow, making the world outside the window almost ghostly. She took advantage of that moment to think of that evening, of the mission she had to accomplish and for which she had had to approach Jason Grace. She had immediately thought he looked like the typical American boy who, in order to conquer the heart of the damsel on duty, is willing to sacrifice his secrets, opening his soul through and through. Reyna sighed heavily, reminding herself that, however it would go, the boy was not as stupid as he seemed to be, and that he could find out who she really was at any time that night. She brushed her fingertips against the purple red tulle of her dress which, just at that point, hid her most trusted friend, a Taurus PT-24/7. The one that, years earlier, she had stolen from her father's office when she and Hylla decided to leave.

She managed to remove those old memories that for too long she had tried to erase from her head only when the car pulled over and Nico turned the engine off – suddenly, the absolute silence won on the continuous buzz of just before. They got out quickly, silently, heading towards the glass door behind which only darkness hid. He took out the keys from the left pocket of his black jeans and, without waiting for someone to ask him, he slipped it into the patch and turned it to the left, pushing it a little bit deeper at the halfway like, by now, all the inhabitants of the apartment had learned to do not to be locked out.

The interior was, as always, dipped in darkness: Reyna was able to barely recognize the corridor that entered into the labyrinth that that house was, the coat hanger on the right side, right next to the door, the emergency bags with their clothes ("One change apiece, be sure!") piled on one side, ready to be grabbed in haste if something went wrong.

They advanced gropingly until they reached the light switch, which the girl hurried to press; suddenly, the room lit up from top to bottom, revealing its faded colors and furniture eroded by time and dust. At the kitchen table, in complete solitude, a boy sat playing with his dagger while smoking a cigarette which he had likely rolled by himself.

"You are back soon," Octavian said, turning towards them. His blond hair was fuzzier than usual, scattered on his forehead in messy locks. His pale eyes, that blue which was almost white, that colour so _insignificant_, swung between Reyna and Nico, as if, for him, the young man and woman weren't meant to be there. He slowly rose from his seat, calmly resting his knife on the surface of pine wood of the table and putting his cigarette out in the ashtray which, as always, no one had bothered to remove from there. "Why?" he asked, approaching them. He glared at them once more, tilting his head and closing his eyes a little, as if he wanted to suggest them that he would not trust whatever answer they would give him.

Reyna rolled here eyes, wondering why she had ever agreed to work for Lupa when she knew that this guy was going to be there too. "It's half past two in the morning, Octavian" she replied, the tone still calm and peaceful, determined not to blow up a war at that time, since it was late, she wanted to rest and didn't want to argue, "it's not that early." She stood still, a soldier posture and her arms along her hips, while he approached her and his friend more and more quickly, step by step, inch by inch.

At her side, Nico was glaring at the blond, too. She saw him clenching his fists with so much strength that his knuckles became whiter than usual. (Well, at least there was someone who could stand Octavian less than her, she told herself.) "She's right," he murmured, with his usual low voice, "We have been at the party for more than four hours." Reyna gave him a grateful and admonitory glance at the same time: she was very grateful to him for trying to protect her – as, on the other hand, he always did –, but she didn't want a fight for which, then, they would have to deal with their bosses.

"Did you meet him at least?" the blond growled, stopping a few steps away from them. He opened his arms in an expression that showed all his contempt and his conviction that if it was him who had gone to the college party Percy Jackson was at, he would have had more success than his companions, _for sure_. The faded blue of his iris glistened for a fraction of a second, making it clear to the young man and woman that they weren't allowed to lie to him. If they did, and his gaze was repeating it straight out, they would have to deal with who was more important than them – those who, once and for all, could get them kicked out of the congregation and who, cherry on top, would annihilate them, feeding them to those to whom, certainly, they were not sympathetic.

Reyna sighed. "Jackson was with his girlfriend," she said, thinking back to when, hoping that Jason had not noticed, she had followed out of the corner of her eye the movements of the young woman and man until, almost running, the two of them had moved away from the dance floor, escaping from the noise of the party to go and escape to a much quieter place. She had recognized Percy's facial expressions, his fluid and timid movements at the same time, especially when it came to Annabeth, his inseparable girlfriend. "I didn't talk to him, but I approached Jason Grace."

Octavian crossed his arms on his chest, curious to hear what else she would be able to report. He glanced at Nico, interrogating him silently and begging him to confirm that everything she was telling him was true; the boy answered him with a shrug and a nod. The blond shrugged his shoulders, curling his lips in an expression that, in different contexts, she would find amusing. He stretched his arms along his hips, and lifted an eyebrow, signaling her to continue. "And?" His tone of defiance triggered her forward, clenching her fists and running her right hand towards the thigh on which she had fastened the ultralight pistol.

Reyna slowly inspired, screaming to her brain to regain control over her thoughts and actions. That kid would make her go crazy sooner or later. Only when she felt her breath regularize and the heartbeat slowly become softer, the girl decided to open her lips to speak. "I've been with him all evening" she heard herself say, and tried not to blush. "I tried to make him say something, but I couldn't insist that much." She uttered that sentence almost under her breath, almost as if it were an apology for something that, in fact, was not her fault. She looked up at her interlocutor, staring at his forehead, hoping that it'd melt in contact with the anger of her gaze. "I couldn't risk exposure."

"But," the boy didn't move under her incinerating glance – he probably wanted to look stronger than he really was. Instead, he undertook with all the willpower that he had in his body to stretch the wrinkled t-shirt he wore, the white one that, once, had to be a very light blue. Reyna remembered seeing him with the same t-shirt the day that Lupa had welcomed her in her arms, saving her from the nightmare in which she was living. "You could have stayed with him more time. You could have done more. Didn't you think of, I don't know," he hiked, pretending a doubtful tone sounding so false that even a five-year-old would understand he was lying, "spend the night with him?"

She shuddered, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head to remove as quickly as possible from her mind the dark and perverse thought that pushed to pop into her brain. She changed her weight from one foot on the other, nervous at the thought of locks of blond hair and glances hidden behind soft sighs and bare skin. "I think there was no need," she said, trying to control herself and reject the bad memory from nine years earlier. She stroked her hair with her fingertips, sliding between the black strands, keeping her gaze on his opponent. "He could have..."

"I knew it!" Octavian exclaimed, beating his left fist on the stretched palm of his right hand. His voice rose an octave while, with the confidence of who knows they're right, he opened his eyes. He advanced one step more, two, pointing at them with his index finger, so skinny that it looked like a toothpick. He studied her with his eyelids half-closed, the gaze that went up and down her face and her body, still wrapped in the tulle and satin dress that was beginning to choke her. Reyna widened her shoulders and stretched her neck, clenching her jaw – she could not risk encouraging him to think that she was afraid of him, because she wasn't. She couldn't, _m__ustn't_ be afraid of anything. She stared at Octavian as he approached her again, arching an eyebrow. "You disobeyed Lupa, didn't you? You went to the party armed."

The girl tried to keep calm, trying to find any excuse, any reason for which she would be exempted from being blamed by her companions and bosses. She took a deep breath for the second time that evening, and lowered her eyelids to help the concentration. In a moment, suspended above an abyss of which she couldn't see the end, with only a sewing thread as a lifeline, Reyna revisited all the advices that Hylla had given her before the two were separated, in search of a solution, whatever it might be. She reopened her eyes slowly, with her sister's voice echoing her in the head: "_When you don't know how to defend yourself, you attack first_". Her lips moved before her own will, blossoming in words that she herself didn't expect. "I think you're in no position to speak," she replied, in a calm and quiet tone. At the end of the day, that boy didn't deserve to know he was the most annoying being in her life – he wasn't that important.

Finally, the boy stepped back, widening his eyes in surprise. At her side, Nico tried in vain to hide a sneer, even though Reyna doubted that he knew what she was alluding to: she had proceeded on her own, that time. Octavian gave her a perplexed and frightened look, while, trying to stay rational, he reasoned on how she could have discovered his plan. He backed off, freeing the girl's panorama from his cumbersome and oppressive figure; now, she could see the kitchen that was almost falling apart, the dusty shelves and the still dirty plates piled up inside the washbasin. "I-I don't know w-what you're talking about, Reyna" the blond stuttered, clasping his shoulders and crossing his arms again (what did he want to do?, protect himself from her accusations?).

She remained motionless – she didn't giggle as she wanted to, nor approached him, slapping him on his left cheek as her body was commanding her – and, with the flat tone of before, she started talking again, ignoring him completely. "However," she began, casting a glance at both him and Nico, who addressed her a reassuring nod, "I found out something new." She remembered the conversation she had with Jason, and the surprise she had had to repress when the boy had told her something she didn't even suspect. She wanted to have a microphone hidden somewhere in her clothes, because she doubted that the others would believe her. They stayed for a moment in absolute silence, the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall of the modest dining room that scanned the seconds in which, so long before, someone smarter than them and who didn't even know them had decided to subdivide their lives. _Tic-Tac, Tic-Tac. _Then, the girl pushed new words up her throat and out of her lips, the same ones she feared to report. "Percy attends a fencing course."

Nico frowned, while Octavian lifted his eyebrows so much that, for a moment, Reyna feared that he might lose them. "What?" they asked in unison, incredulous. Octavian almost shouted, the voice one or two octaves higher. "It isn't possible!" he went on, lifting his arms, as if he was praying to any God to grab him and take him away from there. "We – we've been stalking him _for a whole month_!" he exclaimed, swallowing the last saliva that his body was able to produce in that moment of pure panic. "We have followed all his movements, day and night! We wrote down everything! It's not possible that we missed something like this!" he cried again, shaking his upper limbs in uncoordinated and almost dionysian movements. Then, he paused abruptly, bringing back his eyes on her. He turned his head, showing her his right ear. "Are you lying, by any chance?" he inquired.

Nico snorted. "And why should she, Octavian?" he asked, making the boy that, in all probability, had already forgotten his presence there, wince. "She's paid for it too, isn't she? Why would she want to refer false information to us?" The dark hair locks covered his eyes almost completely, making him look like a spirit returned to avenge some wrongs it had gone through in life (if it had been so, Reyna wouldn't have blamed him – even she would have liked to strangle Octavian in his sleep, once she was dead). His skin an olive tone and at the same time terribly pale seemed to absorb any kind of light, increasing the intensity of the darkness that surrounded them.

"To decoy us, perhaps. Maybe she wants to do the work alone," the boy said, looking at his opponent in the eye. He bent his torso towards him, his hands on his hips and bent elbows, as if he wanted to study every single detail of his face. "Or perhaps," he went on, turning towards Reyna and facing her, "she fell in love with that creep. Isn't that right, Reyna? I read what you wrote about Percy Jackson, you know?"

The girl frowned. What was he talking about? She shook her head, feeling her fingertips tingling slightly. She looked down, staring at the tips of the golden sandals that her dress was committing to hide. "Whatever you are referring to, Octavian, it's not important now. I'm telling you the truth and I would have no reason to do otherwise: you know well how much care about Lupa," she replied, the coldest voice she managed to get out of her lips. She couldn't get upset – she couldn't even imagine the possibility of ending up like Hazel and Frank. She breathed deeply, the chest she was puffing out under her high and firm chin. "Jackson attends a fencing course and that's it" she said, sliding her gaze from one companion to another.

Nico took a deep breath, as if he had to hold his breath for too long and his lungs were exploding. "Actually, this could be a problem," he admitted, his black eyes in Reyna's, just as dark as if they wanted to mix with his in a color that didn't crack at all with the whole situation. "If he's good enough, he will surely know how to defend himself." He pressed a wrist between his thumb and the forefinger of his other hand, managing to hug it abundantly, skeletal as he was, fiddling with the black band, which, with two laps, set the boy's white skin in a vice that was impossible to notice. "And there might be other things we don't know, other than that. If Jackson is so good at hiding what he does not to let us find out about it, well, he could be doing another hundred usual actions that we are unaware of," he reasoned aloud, not daring to look away from Reyna. The girl wondered if her friend had eaten, lately, and, if not, when it had been the last time he had thrown something solid into his stomach. Looking at him, one could guess that Nico was too skinny, and that a simple breath could put him on the ground with such a violence that it would make him lose his senses.

"This is the thing that scares me the most, actually," she responded, sincere, bending her head slightly towards the black-haired boy. She cleared her voice, slightly uncomfortable. "And then," she reasoned, straightening her back and joining her hands on her lap, her fingers intertwined, "How did we not notice it?" The girl lowered her tone, remembering all the time that she, Nico and Octavian had passed tracing every single movement of their target, Percy Jackson. For thirty days, they had followed him, in the car or on foot, being careful not to get closer than thirty meters from the boy. In one month, everything was clear: the two-hours-long daily training at the pool of the campus where he studied, the lessons that the boy attended with not too much enthusiasm and to which he undertook to arrive always slightly late, the usual dates on Saturday night with his girlfriend, Annabeth Chase, and those more causal with his other friends, of whom the most intimate were Grover Underwood, naturalist activist who ran the country to convey to fellow citizens the importance of preserving the environment, and Jason Grace, the boy with whom she had spoken, third year student of Political Science, dreamer and idealist who wanted to make America a better place. "Should we tell Hades?"

"No!" the blond yelled, the well-visible veins were pulsing at a very worrying rate on his neck. "We can't! Their... Well, you know what happened to Hazel and Zhang, too, right? We wouldn't end up better, if they found out that we failed" he went on, looking at them both in the eye. He advanced into the room again, overhanging the living space of the other two. His body trembled because of fear or rage, Reyna had no idea, and his eyes outside the orbits were the confirmation that, at least at that moment, something was wrong with him. "Mr. Hades and Lupa will return in a week," he explained, making the girl wonder where he had learned that information which, it seemed, was unedited to both her and Nico. "We could look for more information, meanwhile. I could talk to Grace, investigate."

"I don't think it's the right choice," Nico muttered, shrugging his shoulders and becoming a dark speck that could swallow the world around her like a black hole. His hair covered his forehead and part of his eyes, making him an even more gloomy and sombre figure. "We've already come into contact with them. We shouldn't do it again." He cleared his voice while, with the palms of both his hands, he stretched his black skull t-shirt heavily, almost ironing it.

The blond leapt, upset as he was. "But," he cried out his lungs, "We can't just do nothing! I... Under my supervision... Reyna!," Octavian turned to face her, stretching his arms and resting both his hands on her bare shoulders. The girl tried to break free, taking a step back, but his grip was so firm that it didn't leave a chance. "You already know this guy. It'll be easier for you."

The girl couldn't believe her ears: Octavian, the most selfish and egocentric and superb boy you'll ever known, was really asking her to do such an important job? She turned to Nico who, more confused and surprised than her, was staring at the scene in silence. As soon as he intercepted her interrogative gaze, the boy waved his hand, washing his hands from all responsibility that the choice of not saying anything to their leaders implied.

What was she supposed to do? Of course, she didn't want to be kicked out of the group just because, _evidently, _they had not completed what they had been asked to do: the only thought caused her some creeps along her back, which, of course, were not pleasant. Yet, she didn't want to betray Lupa, her mistress, the woman who had cared for her and raised her as a daughter since Reyna had clear and no longer blurred and confused memories. It would be against her moral and, knowing the woman, also counterproductive. The girl shook her head vigorously, casting off all sorts of negative thoughts that invaded her brain at that moment. "All right." She listened to herself attentively, noting the strange tremor of her voice, which only she would notice, and that insecurity which, reluctantly, she had never been able to repress altogether. "All right," she repeated, "I will."

Nico used a calm and peaceful tone, but powerful enough to scare Octavian for the second time. "Reyna," he called her, addressing her a glance that sowed his concern, "Are you sure?" The boy seemed genuinely displeased by that situation, as if he had been the cause of the disaster in which the three had got themselves. "You do not have to do it, you know," he said, giving the other boy a glance that was far from reassuring.

She shrugged her shoulders, succeeding at last to break free from Octavian's grip, who let go of her arms and took one or two steps back, that much that was needed to make Reyna feel still oppressed by his presence. She looked at his friend's twisted face; the frown expression, the slightly ruffled forehead and the lips clenched in a secret deal with the discretion of those who have already heard enough.

"I'm sure," she replied, opening her shoulders in the remote hope of showing the others a decision that, at that moment, she was deprived of – _What was she supposed to do? _She approached Nico and looked at him with as much sweetness as she could show. "We have a few more days. It'll be fine, you'll see." Reyna hoped that it was true, and that Hades would never find out that his three _professional _workers had not succeeded in completing the plan successfully within the time limits he had given them – otherwise, they would completely lose his trust, which was already difficult to keep as well. "Tomorrow I'll make sure I meet Jason Grace again and that he gives me some more information."


End file.
